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February 6, 2025

Reimagining Your SOC: Unlocking a Proactive State of Security

Reimagining your SOC Part 3/3: This blog explores the challenges security professionals face in managing cyber risk, evaluates current market solutions, and outlines strategies for building a proactive security posture.
Inside the SOC
Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.
Written by
Gabriel Few-Wiegratz
Product Marketing Manager, Exposure Management and Incident Readiness
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06
Feb 2025

Part 1: How to Achieve Proactive Network Security

Part 2: Overcoming Alert Fatigue with AI-Led Investigations  

While the success of a SOC team is often measured through incident management effectiveness (E.g MTTD, MTTR), a true measure of maturity is the reduction of annual security incidents.

Organizations face an increasing number of alerts each year, yet the best SOC teams place focus on proactive operations which don’t reduce the threshold for what becomes an incident but targets the source risks that prevent them entirely.

Freeing up time to focus on cyber risk management is a challenge in and of itself, we cover this in the previous two blogs in this series (see above). However, when the time comes to manage risk, there are several challenges that are unique when compared to detection & response functions within cybersecurity.

Why do cyber risks matter?

While the volume of reported CVEs is increasing at an alarming rate[1], determining the criticality of each vulnerability is becoming increasingly challenging, especially when the likelihood and impact may be different for each organization. Yet vulnerabilities have stood as an important signpost in traditional security and mitigation strategies. Now, without clear prioritization, potentially severe risks may go unreported, leaving organizations exposed to significant threats.

Vulnerabilities also represent just one area of potential risks. Cyberattacks are no longer confined to a single technology type. They now traverse various platforms, including cloud services, email systems, and networks. As technology infrastructure continues to expand, so does the attack surface, making comprehensive visibility across all technology types essential for reducing risk and preventing multi-vector attacks.

However, achieving this visibility is increasingly difficult as infrastructure grows and the cyber risk market remains oversaturated. This visibility challenge extends beyond technology to include personnel and individual cyber hygiene which can still exacerbate broader cyberattacks whether malicious or not.

Organizations must adopt a holistic approach to preventative security. This includes improving visibility across all technology types, addressing human risks, and mobilizing swiftly against emerging security gaps.

“By 2026, 60% of cybersecurity functions will implement business-impact-focused risk assessment methods, aligning cybersecurity strategies with organizational objectives.” [2]

The costs of a fragmented approach

siloed preventative security measures or technologies
Figure 1: Organizations may have a combination of siloed preventative security measures or technologies in place

Unlike other security tools (like SIEM, NDR or SOAR) which contain an established set of capabilities, cyber risk reduction has not traditionally been defined by a single market, rather a variety of products and practices that each provide their own value and are overwhelming if too many are adopted. Just some examples include:

  • Threat and Vulnerability management: Leverages threat intelligence, CVEs and asset management; however, leaves teams with significant patching workflows, ignores business & human factors and is reliant on the speed of teams to keep up with each passing update.  
  • Continuous Controls Monitoring (CCM): Automatically audits the effectiveness of security controls based on industry frameworks but requires careful prioritization and human calculations to set-up effectively. Focuses solely on mobilization.
  • Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS): Automates security posture testing through mock scenarios but require previous prioritization and might not tell you how your specific technologies can be mitigated to reduce that risk.
  • Posture Management technologies: Siloed approaches across Cloud, SaaS, Data Security and even Gen AI that reactively assess misconfigurations and suggest improvements but with only industry frameworks to validate the importance of the risks.
  • Red teaming & Penetration testing: Required by several regulations including (GDPR, HIPPA, PCI, DSS), many organizations hire 'red teams' to perform real breaches in trusted conditions. Penetration tests reveal many flaws, but are not continuous, requiring third-party input and producing long to-do lists with input of broader business risk dependent on the cost of the service.
  • Third-party auditors: Organizations also use third-party auditors to identify assets with vulnerabilities, grade compliance, and recommend improvements. At best, these exercises become tick-box exercises for companies to stay in compliance with the responsibility still on the client to perform further discovery and actioning.

Many of these individual solutions on the market offer simple enhancement, or an automated version of an existing human security task. Ultimately, they lack an understanding of the most critical assets at your organization and are limited in scope, only working in a specific technology area or with the data you provide.

Even when these strategies are complete, implementation of the results require resources, coordination, and buy-in from IT, cybersecurity, and compliance departments. Given the nature of modern business structures, this can be labor and time intensive as responsibilities are shared by organizational segmentation spread across IT, governance, risk and compliance (GRC), and security teams.

Prioritize your true cyber risk with a CTEM approach

Organizations with robust security programs benefit from well-defined policies, standards, key risk indicators (KRIs), and operational metrics, making it easier to measure and report cyber risk accurately.

Implementing a framework like Gartner’s CTEM (Continuous Threat Exposure Management) can help governance by defining the most relevant risks to each organization and which specific solutions meet your improvement needs.

This five-step approach—scoping, discovery, prioritization, validation, and mobilization—encourages focused management cycles, better delegation of responsibilities and a firm emphasis on validating potential risks through technological methods like attack path modeling or breach and attack simulation to add credibility.

Implementing CTEM requires expertise and structure. This begins with an exposure management solution developed uniquely alongside a core threat detection and response offering, to provide visibility of an organization’s most critical risks, whilst linking directly to their incident-based workflows.

“By 2026, organizations prioritizing their security investments, based on a continuous threat exposure management program, will realize a two-third reduction in breaches.” [3]

Achieving a proactive security posture across the whole estate

Unlike conventional tools that focus on isolated risks, Darktrace / Proactive Exposure Management breaks down traditional barriers. Teams can define risk scopes with full, prioritized visibility of the critical risks between: IT/OT networks, email, Active Directory, cloud resources, operational groups, (or even the external attack surface by integrating with Darktrace / Attack Surface Management).

Our innovative, AI-led risk discovery provides a view that mirrors actual attacker methodologies. It does this through advanced algorithms that determine risk based on business importance, rather than traditional device-type prioritization. By implementing a sophisticated damage assessment methodology, security teams don’t just prioritize via severity but instead, the inherent impact, damage, weakness and external exposure of an asset or user.

These calculations also revolutionize vulnerability management by combining industry standard CVE measurements with that organization-specific context to ensure patch management efforts are efficient, rather than an endless list.

Darktrace also integrates MITRE ATT&CK framework mappings to connect all risks through attack path modeling. This offers validation to our AI’s scoring by presenting real world incident scenarios that could occur across your technologies, and the actionable mitigations to mobilize against them.

For those human choke points, security may also deploy targeted phishing engagements. These send real but harmless email ‘attacks’ to test employee susceptibility, strengthening your ability to identify weak points in your security posture, while informing broader governance strategies.

Combining risk with live detection and response

Together, each of these capabilities let teams take the best steps towards reducing risk and the volume of incidents they face. However, getting proactive also sharpens your ability to handle live threats if they occur.  

During real incidents Darktrace users can quickly evaluate the potential impact of affected assets, create their own risk detections based on internal policies, strengthen their autonomous response along critical attack paths, or even see the possible stage of the next attack.

By continually ingesting risk information into live triage workflows, security teams will develop a proactive-first mindset, prioritizing the assets and alerts that have the most impact to the business. This lets them utilize their resource in the most efficient way, freeing up even more time for risk management, mitigation and ensuring continuity for the business.

Whether your organization is laying the foundation for a cybersecurity program or enhancing an advanced one, Darktrace’s self-learning AI adapts to your needs:

  • Foundational stage: For organizations establishing visibility and automating detection and response.
  • Integrated stage: For teams expanding coverage across domains and consolidating tools for simplicity.
  • Proactive stage: For mature security programs enhancing posture with vulnerability management and risk prioritization.

The Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform empowers security teams to adopt a preventative defense strategy by using Cyber AI Analyst and autonomous response to fuel quicker triage, incident handling and give time back for proactive efforts designed around business impact. The platform encapsulates the critical capabilities that help organizations be proactive and stay ahead of evolving threats.

darktrace proactive exposure management solution brief reduce risk cyber risk

Download the solution brief

Maximize security visibility and reduce risk:

  • Unify risk exposure across all technologies with AI-driven scoring for CVEs, human communications, and architectures.
  • Gain cost and ROI insights on CVE risks, breach costs, patch latency, and blind spots.
  • Strengthen employee awareness with targeted phishing simulations and training.
  • Align proactive and reactive security by assessing device compromises and prevention strategies.
  • Reduce risk with tailored guidance that delivers maximum impact with minimal effort.

Take control of your security posture today. Download here!

References

[1] https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/search, Search all, Statistics, Total matches By Year 2023 against 2024

[2] https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/5598859

[3] https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/how-to-manage-cybersecurity-threats-not-episodes

Inside the SOC
Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.
Written by
Gabriel Few-Wiegratz
Product Marketing Manager, Exposure Management and Incident Readiness

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March 18, 2026

When Reality Diverges from the Playbook: Darktrace Identifies Encryption in a World Leaks Ransomware Attack

EaaS, World Leaks, a rebrand of Hunters International, are known for their extortion-only attack model, abandoning the tactic of file encryption. However, contrary to these claims, Darktrace detected a World Leaks compromise where a ransomware payload was deployed, and customer data was encrypted.Default blog imageDefault blog image

As-a-Service Cybercrime Models

As-a-Service cybercrime models reduce the barrier to entry for cyber criminals as they no longer need expertise in every domain. Threat actors can increasingly outsource or supplement missing skills through the broader cybercrime-as-a-service ecosystem, and thus these models continue to grow in popularity within the cybercriminal underground. This has led to multiple templates in this sphere, such as Phishing-as-a-Service, Botnet-as-a-Service, DDoS-as-a-Service, and notably Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) [1].

What is Extortion-as-a-Service?

Extortion-as-a-Service (EaaS) businesses function as a formalized way for cyber threat actors to offer extortion services to others for a fee or profit share and represents an evolution of extortion operations from the double-extortion ransomware model. Advancing from the RaaS model, extortion has become a distinct profit stream, separate from the encryption payload. This separation of functions, data theft, negotiation, and publicity, sets the stage for EaaS [1].

The EaaS model reflects a broader trend in cybercriminal activity, in which threat actors increasingly prioritize data theft and public exposure over traditional ransomware encryption. This shift reduces operational complexity while increasing pressure on victims through reputational damage. This approach has become increasingly popular among threat actors as, unlike encryption-based attacks, these operations are more difficult to detect and remediate [2]. It reflects a trend of ‘hack-and-leak’ operations that prioritize stealth, speed, and reputational damage over traditional encryption-based ransomware attacks [3].

World Leaks Overview

World Leaks emerged in early 2024 as a direct rebrand of the Hunters International ransomware group, which was notorious for encrypting victims’ data and demanding payment for decryption keys. In mid-2025, Hunters International shifted to an extortion-only model due to law enforcement scrutiny and reduced profitability, rebranding itself as World Leaks.

World Leaks functions as an affiliate-based EaaS operation which provides proprietary Storage Software exfiltration tooling to affiliates while maintaining a four-platform infrastructure consisting of a main data leak site hosted on the Dark Web where victim data is published, a victim negotiation portal with live chat, an affiliate management panel, and an insider journalist platform granting media outlets 24-hour advance access to stolen data before public release [4]. Since its emergence, World Leaks has published data stolen from dozens of organizations globally on its data leak site, serving both as a pressure tactic and a means for building reputation among cyber criminals.

World Leaks (known associations include Hive Ransomware, Secp0 Ransomware, and UNC6148) have been known to target the industrial (manufacturing) sector, along with healthcare organizations, technology firms and more generally, industries with valuable intellectual property [4]. Victims targeted have spanned multiple countries, with most located in the US, as well as Canada and several countries across Europe [5].

World Leaks’ Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) [3][4]

World Leaks’ typical attack pattern involves the exploitation of credentials with inadequate access controls, e.g. lacking multi-factor authentication (MFA), moving through reconnaissance, lateral movement and data exfiltration, notably without an encryption element.

Initial Access:

Initial access is typically gained through the exploitation of compromised virtual private network (VPN) credentials lacking MFA through valid accounts, as well as phishing campaigns. The targeting of internet-facing VPN infrastructure, RDP, and public-facing applications also represent common attack vectors in World Leaks incidents.

Lateral Movement:

SMB, RDP, and SSH are used for lateral movement via remote services. Notably, the group is also known to use PsExec and Rclone as part of their lateral movement activities.

Persistence:

Registry key modifications, scheduled tasks creation, account manipulation.

Exfiltration:

Data exfiltration is carried out through custom storage software tooling via TOR connections. Cloud storage services used for exfiltration particularly include MEGA. World Leaks also carry out direct data transfer through established command-and-control (C2) infrastructure.

Unlike Hunters International, which combined encryption with extortion, World Leaks claims to have abandoned the use of encryption. Some reports note that operations since January 2025 represent a pivot toward eliminating encryption entirely, instead relying on custom exfiltration tooling with SOCKSv5 proxy and TOR-based communications [4]. However, in early 2026, Darktrace detected an incident that directly contradicted this claim: World Leaks carried out an attack that involved both the exfiltration and encryption of customer data.

Darktrace’s Coverage of World Leaks Ransomware

Organizations today face a growing challenge: keeping pace with increasingly fast-moving threats. This incident highlights a common problem, when time-limited mitigations expire or human security teams cannot respond quickly enough, attackers are often able to regain the upper hand. A recent Darktrace detection of World Leaks ransomware provides a clear example of this challenge in practice.

In January 2026, Darktrace identified the presence of ransomware and data encryption linked to World Leaks within the network of an organization within the healthcare sector. Although Darktrace’s Autonomous Response capability was active in the customer’s environment and initially blocking suspicious connectivity, buying time for the customer to remediate, the attack continued once these mitigative actions expired. Darktrace continued to apply Autonomous Response actions as the attack progressed, working to inhibit the attackers at each stage of the intrusion.

Investigations carried out by Darktrace revealed that threat actors likely gained initial access via a Fortigate appliance in mid-October, indicating a three-month dwell time, before employing living-off-the-land (LOTL) techniques for lateral movement. C2 communications were established using Cloudflare Tunnel (formerly Argo Tunnel). As part of the Actions on Objectives attack phase, a significant volume of data was exfiltrated to the MEGA cloud storage platform, followed by the encryption of customer data.

Initial access/ Lateral movement

Darktrace analysts identified the likely patient-zero device within the network as a Fortigate appliance. In October 2025, this device was seen conducting brute-force activity using the compromised ‘administrator’ credential to gain a foothold deeper within the customer’s environment. Masquerading as a privileged user, the threat actor then went on to launch activity on remote devices via PsExec, a common administrative tool that allows users to execute processes on remote systems without manually installing client software, providing significant power to attackers when abused. Around the time, Darktrace detected an unknown device on the network attempting to authenticate via NTLM. As this device had not previously been seen on the network, it likely belonged to the attacker.

Reconnaissance

As part of the reconnaissance phase of the attack, port and network scanning was carried out in an attempt to identify open UDP and TCP ports within the network.

Lateral movement & C2

Around one month after entering the customer’s network, the World Leaks threat actors began tunnelling activity using Cloudflare Tunnel. Darktrace detected connections to several hostnames including: region2.v2.argotunnel[.]com; h2.cftunnel[.]com; region1.v2.argotunnel[.]com. This tunnelling activity continued until January of 2026, when encryption occurred. Cloudflare tunnels are known to be abused by attackers as they enable the use of temporary infrastructure to scale operations, allowing rapid deployment and teardown. Furthermore, leveraging of Cloudflare’s infrastructure to create these rate-limited tunnels (used to relay traffic from an attacker-controlled server to a local machine) makes such malicious activity harder to detect by both defenders and traditional security measures, particularly those that rely on static blocklists [6].

Further lateral movement was carried out using common remote management tools such as Windows Remote Management (WinRM) RDP, allowing the World Leaks threat actors to access local devices within the victim organization’s network.

As this attack progressed, Darktrace detected multiple files being written over SMB. These files included Windows\Temp\chromeremotedesktophost.msi, which was written from the patient-zero device to another internal device as part of lateral movement efforts. Following this transfer, and prior to subsequent data exfiltration activity, a network server was observed connecting to the hostname remotedesktop-pa[.]googleapis[.]com, an API endpoint required for Chrome Remote Desktop, indicating that Chrome RDP was used by the threat actor in this stage of the attack.

Other files written over SMB included the script programdata\syc\OpenSSHUtils.psm1 (which can be used legitimately to configure OpenSSH) and the executable programdata\syc\ssh‑sk‑helper.exe (a legitimate OpenSSH component used to support security keys). These files were written from the suspected patient‑zero device to an internal domain controller using the ‘administrator’ credential.

Thereafter, SSH connections to external IP address 51.15.109[.]222 were observed, providing another channel between the malicious actors and victim machines. Darktrace recognized that the use of SSH by the devices seen connecting to this IP address was highly anomalous, indicating that this suspicious activity formed part of the attack.

Writes of the script programdata\syc\OpenSSHUtils.psm1 were also observed into January, highlighting the continuation of the attack that had begun three months earlier.

On December 19 and 20, Darktrace detected a DNS server within the customer’s network making anomalous outgoing connections to an external IP address not previously seen in the environment: 193.161.193[.]99. This IP address has been reported by open-source-intelligence (OSINT) as being associated with C2 infrastructure, having been linked to several remote access trojans (RATs) and botnets in the past.

This activity a shift towards the infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) model, underscoring the growing trend around As-a-Service Cybercrime models and the increasing the industrialization of botnets. The presence of extensive digital botnets, often leased to other criminal organizations, means the group gaining initial access is not necessarily the same group conducting ransomware deployment or data theft; botnets now act as shared underlying infrastructure enabling multiple forms of cybercriminal activity [7].

Furthermore, connections to this IP address (193.161.193[.]99) were made over port 1194, which is associated with OpenVPN, suggesting that World Leaks may have leveraged it to obfuscate C2 communication with attacker-controlled infrastructure.

Darktrace’s detection of the IP address 193.161.193[.]99, noting that it was first seen within the customer’s network on December 19, 2025.
Figure 1: Darktrace’s detection of the IP address 193.161.193[.]99, noting that it was first seen within the customer’s network on December 19, 2025.

Data exfiltration

In November, Darktrace detected the threat actors carrying out one of their Attack on Objective tactics: data exfiltration. Multiple local devices within the compromised network began transferring data to Backblaze and MEGA domains, both of which provide cloud storage services; 80+GB of data was transferred to MEGA in late December 2025. Endpoints associated with this activity included: backblazeb2[.]com and gfs302n520[.]userstorage[.]mega[.]co[.]nz, as well as related user agents such as AS40401 BACKBLAZE) and MegaClient/10.3.0/64.

Notably, Darktrace researchers identified two known World Leaks TTPs in this attack: the use of MEGA, a known tool abused by the group, and Rclone, a command-line tool used to manage files on cloud storage, which was observed in the user agent of the MEGA data-transfer connections: rclone/v1.69.0 [4].

Cyber AI Analyst Incident highlighting data upload activity to backblaze[.]com endpoints.
Figure 2: Cyber AI Analyst Incident highlighting data upload activity to backblaze[.]com endpoints.\

Ransomware deployment & encryption

The encryption stage of this attack was confirmed by the presence of a ransom note found on the network in a file with a seemingly randomized nine-character string preceding README.txt, attributing the incident to World Leaks, along with an extension with the same nine characters appended to encrypted files. Darktrace also observed SMB writes of files named world.exe and task.bat, with the compromised ‘localadmin’ credential used during the SMB logins. It is likely that these files served as the vector for the ransomware payload.

 Packet Capture (PCAP) of the ransom note claiming that the attack was carried out by World Leaks.
Figure 3: Packet Capture (PCAP) of the ransom note claiming that the attack was carried out by World Leaks.

Conclusion

Though traditional ransomware relies on encryption, recent trends show that cyber threat actors no longer need to rely on noisy encryption tools and can eliminate much of the risk and technical complexity associated with encrypting systems. This is the model reportedly preferred by World Leaks after their rebrand from Hunters International.

In addition to reducing noise around these attacks, extortion‑only operations may be favored by threat actors over encryption‑focused ones for several reasons, including the fact that traditional security tools may struggle to detect data theft compared to encryption, that attackers leave less evidence behind when encryption is avoided, and that the long‑term impacts of stolen data on organizations can be greater than the loss of systems caused by encryption processes, which can be restored [8]. This is supported by analysis of data leak sites suggesting that almost 1,500 incidents in 2025 relied on data theft alone. Attackers can simply steal victim data and attempt to extort a ransom by threatening to publish it, without needing to deploy ransomware at all [9]. Furthermore, although World Leaks aims to function as an affiliate‑based EaaS operation, security teams should remain aware that their affiliates may have different criminal objectives.

Contrary to reports that World Leaks’ typical attack style has an extortion‑only objective, Darktrace detected an incident in which a World Leaks attack did end with the encryption of customer data. This highlights the need for adaptive defenses and reinforces the importance of network defenders staying proactive in the face of attacks, particularly as they may progress in ways that are unexpected compared to previous trends associated with a given threat actor.

Credit to Tiana Kelly (Senior Cyber Analyst and Analyst Manager) and Emily Megan Lim (Senior Cyber Analyst)

Edited by Ryan Traill (Content Manager)

Appendices

IoCs

  • world.exe – Executable File – Possible Ransomware Payload
  • task.bat – Script File – Possible Ransomware Payload
  • ‘^[A-Z][a-z]{3}[A-Z][a-z][A-Z]{3}[.]README[.]txt' – Ransom Note
  • [.]^[A-Z][a-z]{3}[A-Z][a-z][A-Z]{3} – Ransomware file extension

·       51.15.109[.]222 – IP Address - Possible C2 Infrastructure

·       193.161.193[.]99 – IP Address – Probable C2 Infrastructure

Darktrace Model Detections (Enhanced Monitoring models denoted with an asterisk)

·      Device / Attack and Recon Tools

·      Device / Suspicious SMB Scanning Activity

·      Device / Anomalous NTLM Brute Force

·      Compliance / Connection to Tunnelling Service

·      Device / Suspicious New User Agents

·      Device / New or Unusual Remote Command Execution

·      Compliance / SMB Drive Write

·      Anomalous Connection / Uncommon 1 GiB Outbound

·      Compromise / Ransomware / Ransom or Offensive Words Written to SMB

·      Device / Multiple Lateral Movement Model Alerts*

·      Device / SMB Lateral Movement

·      Unusual Activity / Sustained Anomalous SMB Activity

·      Device / Large Number of Model Alerts

·      Compromise / Ransomware / SMB Reads then Writes with Additional Extensions

·      Compromise / Ransomware / Suspicious SMB Activity*

·      Anomalous File / Internal / Additional Extension Appended to SMB File

·      Unusual Activity / SMB Access Failures

·      Unusual Activity / Enhanced Unusual External Data Transfer*

·      Device / Suspicious File Writes to Multiple Hidden SMB Shares

·      Anomalous Server Activity / Rare External from Server

·      Unusual Activity / Unusual Mega Data Transfer*

·      Device / Possible SMB/NTLM Brute Force

·      Anomalous Connection / Unusual Admin RDP Session

·      Anomalous Connection / Active Remote Desktop Tunnel

·      Anomalous Connection / Data Sent to Rare Domain

·      Anomalous Connection / New or Uncommon Service Control

·      Anomalous Connection / New or Uncommon Service Enumeration

·      Anomalous Connection / Rare WinRM Outgoing

·      Anomalous Connection / SMB Enumeration

·      Anomalous Connection / Unusual Admin RDP Session

·      Anomalous Connection / Unusual Incoming Long Remote Desktop Session

·      Anomalous Connection / Upload via Remote Desktop

·      Anomalous File / Internal / Executable Uploaded to DC

·      Anomalous File / Internal / Unusual SMB Script Write

·      Compliance / SSH to Rare External Destination

·      Device / Anomalous Github Download

·      Device / Anonymous NTLM Logins

·      Device / Network Scan

·      Device / New or Uncommon WMI Activity

·      Device / New User Agent To Internal Server

·      Device / Possible Brute-Force Activity

·      Device / RDP Scan

·      Device / SMB Session Brute Force (Admin)

·      Device / SMB Session Brute Force (Non-Admin)

·      Device / Suspicious Network Scan Activity

·      Unusual Activity / Successful Admin Brute-Force Activity

·      Unusual Activity / Unusual External Data to New Endpoint

·      Unusual Activity / Unusual External Data Transfer

·      Unusual Activity / Unusual File Storage Data Transfer

·      User / New Admin Credentials on Server

Cyber AI Analyst Incidents

·      Scanning of Multiple Devices

·      Large Volume of SMB Login Failures to Multiple Devices

·      Suspicious Chain of Administrative Connections

·      SMB Write of Suspicious File

·      Suspicious DCE-RPC Activity

·      Unusual External Data Transfer

·      Unusual External Data Transfer to Multiple Related Endpoints

·      Unusual External Data Transfer to Endpoints

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

·      Initial Access – T1190 – Exploit Public-Facing Application

·      Defense Evasion, Initial Access, Persistence, Privilege Escalation – T1078 – Valid Accounts

·      Resource Development – T1588.001 – Obtain Capabilities: Malware

·      Reconnaissance – T1590.005 – Gather Victim Network Information: IP Addresses

·      Reconnaissance – T1592.004 – Gather Victim Host Information: Client Configurations

·      Reconnaissance – T1595.001 – Active Scanning: Scanning IP Blocks

·      Reconnaissance – T1595.002 – Active Scanning: Vulnerability Scanning

·      Reconnaissance – T1595.003 – Active Scanning: Wordlist Scanning

·      Discovery – T1018 – Remote System Discovery

·      Discovery – T1046 – Network Service Discovery

·      Discovery – T1083 – File and Directory Discovery

·      Discovery – T1135 – Network Share Discovery

·      Command and Control – T1219 – Remote Access Tools

·      Command and Control – T1219.002 – Remote Access Tools: Remote Desktop Software

·      Command and Control – T1571 – Non-Standard Port

·      Command and Control – T1572 – Protocol Tunneling

·      Command and Control – T1573.001 – Encrypted Channel: Symmetric Cryptography

·      Credential Access – T1110 – Brute Force

·      Credential Access – T1110.001 – Brute Force: Password Guessing

·      Defense Evasion – T1006 – Direct Volume Access

·      Defense Evasion – T1564.005 – Hide Artifacts: Hidden File System

·      Defense Evasion – T1564.012 – Hide Artifacts: File/Path Exclusions

·      Execution – T1047 – Windows Management Instrumentation

·      Execution – T1569.002 – System Services: Service Execution

·      Lateral Movement – T1021 – Remote Services

·      Lateral Movement – T1021.001 – Remote Services: Remote Desktop Protocol

·      Lateral Movement – T1021.002 – Remote Services: SMB/Windows Admin Shares

·      Lateral Movement – T1021.006 – Remote Services: Windows Remote Management

·      Lateral Movement – T1080 – Taint Shared Content

·      Lateral Movement – T1210 – Exploitation of Remote Services

·      Lateral Movement – T1570 – Lateral Tool Transfer

·      Collection – T1039 – Data from Network Shared Drive

·      Collection – T1074 – Data Staged

·      Exfiltration – T1041 – Exfiltration Over C2 Channel

·      Exfiltration – T1048 – Exfiltration Over Alternative Protocol

·      Exfiltration – T1567.002 – Exfiltration Over Web Service: Exfiltration to Cloud Storage

References

[1] https://www.levelblue.com/blogs/levelblue-blog/extortion-as-a-service-the-latest-threat-actor-criminal-ecosystem/

[2] https://blackpointcyber.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/World-Leaks.pdf

[3] https://blackpointcyber.com/threat-profile/world-leaks-ransomware/

[4] https://www.halcyon.ai/threat-group/worldleaks

[5] https://www.moxfive.com/resources/moxfive-threat-actor-spotlight-world-leaks

[6] https://thehackernews.com/2024/08/cybercriminals-abusing-cloudflare.html

[7] https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/tw/security/news/threat-landscape/the-industrialization-of-botnets-automation-and-scale-as-a-new-threat-infrastructure

[8] https://www.morphisec.com/blog/ransomware-without-encryption-why-pure-exfiltration-attacks-are-surging-and-why-theyre-so-hard-to-catch/

[9] https://sed-cms.broadcom.com/sites/default/files/2026-01/RWN-2026-WP100_1.pdf

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About the author
Tiana Kelly
Senior Cyber Analyst & Team Lead

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March 11, 2026

NetSupport RAT: How Legitimate Tools Can Be as Damaging as Malware

NetSupport RAT: How Legitimate Tools Can Be as Damaging as MalwareDefault blog imageDefault blog image

What is NetSupport Manager?

NetSupport Manager is a legitimate IT tool used by system administrators for remote support, monitoring, and management. In use since 1989, NetSupport Manager enables users to remotely access and navigate systems across different platforms and operating systems [1].

What is NetSupport RAT?

Although NetSupport Manager is a legitimate tool that can be used by IT and security professionals, there has been a rising number of cases in which it is abused to gain unauthorized access to victim systems. This misuse has become so prevalent that, in recent years, security researchers have begun referring to NetSupport as a Remote Access Trojan (RAT), a term typically used for malware that enables a threat actor to remotely access or control an infected device [2][3][4].

NetSupport RAT activity summary

The initial stages of NetSupport RAT infection may vary depending on the source of the initial compromise. Using tactics such as the social engineering tactic ClickFix, threat actors attempt to trick users into inadvertently executing malicious PowerShell commands under the guise of resolving a non-existent issue or completing a fake CAPTCHA verification [5]. Other attack vectors such as phishing emails, fake browser updates, malicious websites, search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning, malvertising and drive-by downloads are also employed to direct users to fraudulent pages and fake reCAPTCHA verification checks, ultimately inducing them to execute malicious PowerShell commands [5][6][7]. This leads to the successful installation of NetSupport Manager on the compromised device, which is often placed in non-standard directories such as AppData, ProgramData, or Downloads [3][8].

Once installed, the adversary is able to gain remote access to the affected machine, monitor user activity, exfiltrate data, communicate with the command-and-control (C2) server, and maintain persistence [5]. External research has also highlighted that post-exploitation of NetSupport RAT has involved the additional download of malicious payloads [2][5].

Attack flow diagram highlighting key events across each phase of the attack phase
Figure 1: Attack flow diagram highlighting key events across each phase of the attack phase [2][5].

Darktrace coverage

In November of 2025, suspicious behavior indicative of the malicious abuse of NetSupport Manager was observed on multiple customers across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and the Americas (AMS).

While open-source intelligence (OSINT) has reported that, in a recent campaign, a threat actor impersonated government entities to trick users in organizations in the Information Technology, Government and Financial Services sectors in Central Asia into downloading NetSupport Manager [8], approximately a third of Darktrace’s affected customers in November were based in the US while the rest were based in EMEA. This contrast underscores how widely NetSupport Manager is leveraged by threat actors and highlights its accessibility as an initial access tool.  

The Darktrace customers affected were in sectors including Information and Communication, Manufacturing and Arts, entertainment and recreation.

The ClickFix social engineering tactic typically used to distribute the NetSupport RAT is known to target multiple industries, including Technology, Manufacturing and Energy sectors [9]. It also reflects activity observed in the campaign targeting Central Asia, where the Information Technology sector was among those affected [8].

The prevalence of affected Education customers highlights NetSupport’s marketing focus on the Education sector [10]. This suggests that threat actors are also aware of this marketing strategy and have exploited the trust it creates to deploy NetSupport Manager and gain access to their targets’ systems. While the execution of the PowerShell commands that led to the installation of NetSupport Manager falls outside of Darktrace's purview in cases identified, Darktrace was still able to identify a pattern of devices making connections to multiple rare external domains and IP addresses associated with the NetSupport RAT, using a wide range of ports over the HTTP protocol. A full list of associated domains and IP addresses is provided in the Appendices of this blog.

Although OSINT identifies multiple malicious domains and IP addresses as used as C2 servers, signature-based detections of NetSupport RAT indicators of compromise (IoCs) may miss broader activity, as new malicious websites linked to the RAT continue to appear.

Darktrace’s anomaly‑based approach allows it to establish a normal ‘pattern of life’ for each device on a network and identify when behavior deviates from this baseline, enabling the detection of unusual activity even when it does not match known IoCs or tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs).

In one customer environment in late 2025, Darktrace / NETWORK detected a device initiating new connections to the rare external endpoint, thetavaluemetrics[.]com (74.91.125[.]57), along with the use of a previously unseen user agent, which it recognized as highly unusual for the network.

Darktrace’s detection of HTTP POST requests to a suspicious URI and new user agent usage.
Figure 2: Darktrace’s detection of HTTP POST requests to a suspicious URI and new user agent usage.

Darktrace identified that user agent present in connections to this endpoint was the ‘NetSupport Manager/1.3’, initially suggesting legitimate NetSupport Manager activity. Subsequent investigation, however, revealed that the endpoint was in fact a malicious NetSupportRAT C2 endpoint [12]. Shortly after, Darktrace detected the same device performing HTTP POST requests to the URI fakeurl[.]htm. This pattern of activity is consistent with OSINT reporting that details communication between compromised devices and NetSupport Connectivity Gateways functioning as C2 servers [11].

Conclusion

As seen not only with NetSupport Manager but with any legitimate or open‑source software used by IT and security professionals, the legitimacy of a tool does not prevent it from being abused by threat actors. Open‑source software, especially tools with free or trial versions such as NetSupport Manager, remains readily accessible for malicious use, including network compromise. In an age where remote work is still prevalent, validating any anomalous use of software and remote management tools is essential to reducing opportunities for unauthorized access.

Darktrace’s anomaly‑based detection enables security teams to identify malicious use of legitimate tools, even when clear signatures or indicators of compromise are absent, helping to prevent further impact on a network.


Credit to George Kim (Analyst Consulting Lead – AMS), Anna Gilbertson (Senior Cyber Analyst)

Edited by Ryan Traill (Analyst Content Lead)

Appendices

Darktrace Model Alerts

·       Compromise / Suspicious HTTP and Anomalous Activity

·       Compromise / New User Agent and POST

·       Device / New User Agent

·       Anomalous Connection / New User Agent to IP Without Hostname

·       Anomalous Connection / Posting HTTP to IP Without Hostname

·       Anomalous Connection / Multiple Failed Connections to Rare Endpoint

·       Anomalous Connection / Application Protocol on Uncommon Port

·       Anomalous Connection / Multiple HTTP POSTs to Rare Hostname

·       Compromise / Beaconing Activity To External Rare

·       Compromise / HTTP Beaconing to Rare Destination

·       Compromise / Agent Beacon (Medium Period)

·       Compromise / Agent Beacon (Long Period)

·       Compromise / Quick and Regular Windows HTTP Beaconing

·       Compromise / Sustained TCP Beaconing Activity To Rare Endpoint

·       Compromise / POST and Beacon to Rare External

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

Indicator           Type     Description

/fakeurl.htm URI            NetSupportRAT C2 URI

thetavaluemetrics[.]com        Connection hostname              NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

westford-systems[.]icu            Connection hostname              NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

holonisz[.]com                Connection hostname              NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

heaveydutyl[.]com      Connection hostname              NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

nsgatetest1[.]digital   Connection hostname              NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

finalnovel[.]com            Connection hostname              NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

217.91.235[.]17              IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

45.94.47[.]224                 IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

74.91.125[.]57                 IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

88.214.27[.]48                 IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

104.21.40[.]75                 IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

38.146.28[.]242              IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

185.39.19[.]233              IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

45.88.79[.]237                 IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

141.98.11[.]224              IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

88.214.27[.]166              IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

107.158.128[.]84          IP             NetSupportRAT C2 Endpoint

87.120.93[.]98                 IP             Rhadamanthys C2 Endpoint

References

  1. https://mspalliance.com/netsupport-debuts-netsupport-24-7/
  2. https://blogs.vmware.com/security/2023/11/netsupport-rat-the-rat-king-returns.html
  3. https://redcanary.com/threat-detection-report/threats/netsupport-manager/
  4. https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/security/8.19/netsupport-manager-execution-from-an-unusual-path.html
  5. https://rewterz.com/threat-advisory/netsupport-rat-delivered-through-spoofed-verification-pages-active-iocs
  6. https://thehackernews.com/2025/11/new-evalusion-clickfix-campaign.html
  7. https://corelight.com/blog/detecting-netsupport-manager-abuse
  8. https://thehackernews.com/2025/11/bloody-wolf-expands-java-based.html
  9. https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/preventing-clickfix-attack-vector
  10. https://www.netsupportsoftware.com/education-solutions
  11. https://www.esentire.com/blog/unpacking-netsupport-rat-loaders-delivered-via-clickfix
  12. https://threatfox.abuse.ch/browse/malware/win.netsupportmanager_rat/
  13. https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/5fe6936a69c786c9ded9f31ed1242c601cd64e1d90cecd8a7bb03182c47906c2

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About the author
George Kim
Analyst Consulting Lead – AMS
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